Only Human
by Borath
Summary: Confronted with a medical mystery amongst the Autobots, Ratchet requisitions House and his team for a consult.  Let the snark-off begin. -No pairings-
1. Chapter 1

This is a crossover that I've been wanting to write for weeks. A teaser and a prologue here, I know, but I wanted to test the waters...

* * *

House was easily bored, rarely intrigued and even more rarely impressed. As he read through the file that Cuddy had laid with unusual ceremony on his desk for the fifth time, he found himself gravitating exclusively to the last.

_Top Secret_ had captured his attention, particularly.

Tossing the file with a spin from his wrist back onto the desk, he sat back and picked up the largest of the softballs to hand with the tips of his fingers. Flexing his hand, he brought it up and down in time with his pulse as he stared at some point between himself and the ceiling. He'd been asked for by name for this case (hardly a first), and had been sworn to secrecy before Cuddy had handed him the file. Given the steely control on her trepidation, he concluded that she'd had to sign a similar waver before putting his before him, and had handed said signed form back to a mysterious man in black minutes after leaving the office.

The symptoms in themselves weren't at all that interesting – any first year medical student would have concluded that the patient had pneumonia. But then, most patients weren't alien mechanical life forms. That somewhat changed the presented symptoms.

Cuddy had levelled her hips and arched her brow when she'd told him that the military were looking to make a 'big investment' in the Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital if he could make any headway, which meant a particularly big investment and that he should make his department worth the amount they cost. Hell, House had decided with a twirl of his cane, he'd look at an anthropomorphised monster truck for free, but if the military insisted on paying then that was fine too.

There was a number at the bottom of the summary of findings so far, long after the disclosure warnings and insinuations that he would be shot for talking to anyone who hadn't been authorised about the contents of this file. Even if he'd decided to turn down the case, House knew that he'd have still called that number out of curiosity alone.

It didn't ring; there was only a thick silence before a very terrestrial sounding voice asked, "What?"

He'd long memorised the file, and House swung in his chair to set his feet up on the desk and speak to the ceiling. "Doctor Gregory House, answering the bat wave. Is this really about a giant robot? Seriously? Or is that part of a delusional symptom I should know about up front?"

"Four 'giant robots' to be precise, Doctor," the gravelled voice drawled back. "Am I to assume that your calling this number means that you're taking the case?"

House squinted hard enough to crinkle his nose, swinging in the chair at a speed and distance that didn't hurt. "Depends. Are you guys really aliens?"

A beat as the other speaker on the phone hesitated, before finally: "Yes."

House grinned. "Cool."

Though the voice didn't seem to breath, there was certainly a sighing sound to be found in the next pause. "My designation is Ratchet – I'm the Autobot's chief medic. These symptoms are presenting in four of my unit, including our Commander, and it seems more a biological syndrome than a mechanical."

"Hence getting a consult from a biological," House concluded, setting the ball that he'd been using as a prop to think with back onto the table. Minimising the game of Solitaire that he'd been playing before Cuddy had arrived, he began checking his schedule for the next few weeks. "'Ratchet's a noun, by the way, not a name."

"So's 'House', but I won't hold it against you," Ratchet replied flatly. He didn't give the man time to respond, speaking as if this conversation was occurring within a very limited window of time. "NEST personnel will bring you to Diego Garcia to make a preliminary assessment, as our patients are far too conspicuous to be brought to your hospital. You're authorised to bring anyone you require, and I'll be present to provide you with as much information as you need to solve this."

House slid his feet down from the desk and spun the chair further, now facing the windows and looking up at the gap between the blind and the ceiling. "I wouldn't promise that if I were you – I can be quite needy."

A grunt of a laugh, humourless and entirely tolerating for the sake of professionalism. Rartchet's tone remained unchanged. "All four patients have excessive and unexplained fluids in their vents, dramatically debilitating their coolant systems. As a species we're used to adapting our systems in minor ways to better suit the environment we are living within, which has always been transient. This is the longest we've remained on a planet with atmosphere and life forms, thus the longest opportunity our species has had to mutate since we left our home world. And this is the first time there have been such detrimental side effects."

"And you think 'nurture's got it wrong," House remarked to the ceiling tiles, the back of his mind trying to imagine what the creature he was speaking to looked like. It was eloquent, male and well informed – he would have taken Ratchet for human if it weren't for all the red stamps and mentions of 'alien' in the folder. If anything he just had to see these guys, irrespective of whether he could help. "Alright. I'll have the gang ready to slip into some of those figure-flattering orange tracksuits and we'll see what we can do."

Ratchet hummed a low sound that seemed to reverberate in the bottom of House's stomach. "I'll have the patients ready for samples to be taken, and you'll have their full co-operation."

That tone, House decided, was very like his father's had been – with an underlying sense that he had weaponry and wasn't averse to using it. Not a threat per say, nor an excess of confidence, but a knowing trust in a means to cajole and threaten. Still. "I can't promise anything. I'd have just as much luck treating one of those green chicks off of Star Trek as this."

Ratchet's smile was audible, and even then far from reassuring. "Don't worry, Doctor House – the histories that I give you shall be nothing less than comprehensive."


	2. Chapter 2

_Set roughly at the beginning of Season 5 of _House MD.

* * *

Only Human

_Chapter 2_

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* * *

_

Near-silence reigned on the private military jet that was crossing the country to Diego Garcia. The passenger area was more of living area, with tables between each spaciously placed swivelling chair. Kutner was making a rudimentary weapon out of a deconstructed ballpoint pen, Taub was reading _The Times_, Thirteen was trying to sleep and Foreman was making no pretence about pretending to read but really only giving himself something to do between giving House long-suffering looks.

House was happily oblivious to his team's activities, flicking backwards and forwards through the file covered in enough red stamps as to make it comical. He hadn't shared it with them yet, though was making a point of pursing his lips in exaggerated interest and 'hmm'ing periodically. He'd insisted on bringing the diagnostic white board, now propped between Thirteen and Foreman against the curved wall of the spacious plane.

After four hours with the same newspaper, Taub folded it down onto the table between himself and Kutner and interlaced his fingers atop it. "Alright, I'll bite: Where are we going?"

"That's classified."

A beat as the other doctors were roused, twisting to regard the slight man sat towards the back of the jet, cane spinning in a vertical circle between his knees. Taub's expression was as arid as his tone. "You said that, on the plane, you'd tell us. We're on the plane and we've signed the forms. Furthermore, we're nearly at our secret destination for our secret case that, guess what, we need information to go on so that it doesn't turn into a deceased case."

House smirked with only one corner of his mouth, showing no inclination of handing over the lone file. Instead, he nodded to Thirteen and the whiteboard. "Differential diagnosis: four secret patients present plural effusions. Go."

Foreman and Thirteen exchanged a long look before she simply stood and scrawled the symptom as directed. Kutner slouched back in the beige leather chair, rubbing the spring from the pen between his fingers. House seemed to want shots in the dark at this point, which whilst a waste of time might be a way towards him enlightening them about this case. "Pneumonia?"

"No."

"Lupus?"

"It's never Lupus." House frowned and glanced at the ceiling. "Well, sometimes."

Kutner only needed a peripheral glance to see that the other doctors were too embroiled in irritation at being flown across the country with no given reason, and then presented with a single symptom for patients unknown, to play along. Setting the metal spring aside, he considered the two words in slanting script on the board. "Pleural effusions are hemothorax, pyothorax or chylothorax. Have they had any serious blows to the chest or infections?"

First ports of call, all of which he'd skipped through at great speed. House flicked open the file, though predominantly as a prop. "No blood, no pus and no lymphatic fluid. No lungs, even… It only -looks- like a pleural effusion. We're looking for zebras not horses today, kids."

Thirteen thumbed the cap of the board marker, her small brow furrowing. "Are the patients wheezing or breathless?"

House shrugged. "Don't know. Haven't met them yet."

"This isn't enough to go on – we don't know anything about the patients," Foreman snapped, shifting with a brief intent to physically take the file from House but thinking better of it. Instead he shook his head with a harsh exhale, hands flaring helplessly in his lap. "Age, lifestyle, have they been out of the country recently-"

House grinned at that outright, brows rising for emphasis. "Oh, these boys are from about as out of town as you can get."

Taub sat forward a little, the equivalent of raising a hand. "What does that mean?"

Cane stilling for dramatic effect, House paused before holding the manila file out. He watched Taub's expression morph from a frown to confused astonishment, repeated when Thirteen, Kutner and Foreman gathered to see. "It means that E.T's a robot, and four of them have got colds."

Kutner took two of the glossy photos from the file and dropped back into his seat with them, elbows on his knees and eyes wide. "Whoa – these things are real?"

Sitting back again, House used both hands to ease his leg up onto the closest table. "Really real, really big and really pissed off that they can't figure this out themselves."

Foreman took the file from Taub's hands with renewed scepticism, shaking his head as he flicked through the pages of classified reports and A4 photos. "This is a joke."

"Not a joke. You saw the guys with no personalities and the confidentiality forms so thick that even the biggest administrative tool would faint at the sight of them." All humour gone from his voice, House gestured to the file being taken apart and passed around. Thirteen was the one most closely scrutinizing the contents. "These… 'Autobots' exist and we're being paid, and possibly blackmailed, into treating them at their base."

Taub held up a photo of a yellow mech standing alongside a soldier for scale. "They're really aliens?"

House crinkled his nose and cocked his head with feigned disappointment. "Not little green ones. More like Truckasaurus, but yeah, aliens.

Turning over to the next page of the bundle she'd taken, outlining physical characteristics in far more detail than she could absorb in one read, Thirteen squinted at a long table of figures. Fuel pressures, neural line speeds, protoform weight verses armoured weight… "They're a biomechanical organism?"

"No, just mechanical, but their systems mimic a lot of organic structures," House explained, pushing himself to his feet with a grimace and limping cane-less to the whiteboard. Taking the pen from Thirteen's unresisting hand, he started a new column on the bottom left of the board.

_Human_ / _Truckasaurus_

_Lungs = Intake Manifolds / Vents _

_Brain = CPU_

_Blood = Energon/ Type O _

_Neurons = Circuits_

"Their lungs, for lack of a better word, filter gasses as well as keep their engines from overheating. They adapt to the atmospheric chemical cocktail of their environment as they travel around, which in theory is supposed to keep them running smoothly no matter where they are or what gasses they're taking into their bodies." Capping the pen, he returned to his seat and considered the beginnings of an equivalency system. "It didn't work this time and now their lungs, vents, whatever, are filling with robot goo, and it's accumulating faster than they can scoop it out."

"This is so cool," Kutner grinned, setting a photo down to pick up one of a much slimmer being that seemed to somehow project a regal aura. "Do you think they'd let me keep this?"

Retaking his seat, Taub put his fingers to his mouth as if in prayer as the enormity of what they had been handed began to sink in. "Who else knows about this?"

"Quite a lot of people do," Kutner replied, his mouth quirking when all eyes switched to him. He shrugged a little, gesturing to the photo. "There's been a lot about giant robots on conspiracy theory websites for years. Weapon malfunctions, terrorist attacks, that meteor shower in Egypt – all these guys, if you believe the rumours."

Taub arched a brow, though his expression was otherwise unreadable. "Do you believe the rumours?"

A scoff. "I'm holding a picture of a walking truck that I want to blow up into a poster for my apartment – damn right I believe."

"'Prowl'? Foreman read aloud from the file with mounting incredulity. "'_Ironhide_'?"

House rolled his eyes, though he'd thought that the names were pretty stupid too. "What? You thought the aliens at Roswell were called Tim and Dave?"

Taub blinked and held up a glossy photo of a black mech, jerking it in the air for emphasis. "These guys were at Roswell?"

Foreman ignored the question. "No, but something a little more alien and unpronounceable would have been… expected."

"We can't pronounce their names in their language – these are literal equivalents," House explained with a sweep of his cane to the board, underlining just how much of this case was going to be done through equivalency.

As if wholly accepting that their patients were alien robots whose heights could be measured in storeys, Thirteen finished an initial read of the case file and looked to House. "Can they communicate with us? I mean, are we going to have a translator?"

"Well," House began in a drawl, reaching into his jacket pocket for the plastic cylinder therein. "Given that they've managed to make their way here from across trillions of miles of the unknown majesty of space, it's not a stretch to suppose that they've gotten a handle on our primordial grunts and pick-up lines. They're advanced, but apparently not so advanced that they don't need help from our tweenage species, from which they asked for me by name. Which makes me a nuclear theorist amongst termites, or something." He tossed the Vicodin back as punctuation.

Setting the photo down, Taub sat back with crossed legs and picked up the coffee that he had left stone cold almost an hour ago. "If they're so confident that you'll be able to help, why bring us?"

"Probability," House declared, as if it should have been obvious. "Five minds, even if four of them pale to my fifth, are better than one, and the government is as keen as they are to get a diagnosis and a cure. So with that in mind, I present to you a mechanical being with an organic symptom." He sat upright and expectant, eyes bright with challenge as he flicked a hand at his team. "Go."

When no one spoke, Foreman pinched the bridge of his nose with closed eyes. "You've just told us that there are aliens, on Earth, being sheltered in secret by our government, and you just expect us overlook the fact that we're not alone in the universe and treat them like any other patient?"

House shifted, appearing equally hurt and surprised. "All patients deserve equal treatment. Well. Unless they're supermodels, in which case they deserve excessive treatment."

"Bacteria," Kutner broke in, his gaze on some middle point between the picture in his hands and the carpeted floor. "Germs in our atmosphere, their systems aren't used to it. Makes them sick."

"They're Transformers, not Tripods," House scolded, his face twisted in disappointed disgust. "Don't make a diagnosis based on anticlimactic film endings, and definitely not from the remake by Steven - since _Schlinder's List_ I can't kill a kid - Spielberg. And it isn't Jeff Goldblum's 'cold', either. It's not a virus, technological or otherwise so far as we already know, but they've been pretty strict on who can look at these guys, hence flying us over under cover of confidentiality."

"How are we even going to begin treating them?" Foreman asked with raised hands, looking to each doctor in turn. If they accepted that these life forms were real and not a particularly expensive hoax on House's part, the idea of treating them alone was still ludicrous in his mind. "We can't exactly put them in an MRI machine, or take a PET scan. Or anything else we can do with a human."

A shared concern, House conceded as drew his cane up and began to spin it alongside the seat. "They've got their own medic who'll be collaborating with us: Ratchet. He thinks that a little lateral thinking across the species can get to the bottom of this before they end up dead and dissected."

Thirteen gave a slow nod. "If some of their systems translate to ours, then some of our treatments should translate back."

"Right. So are you in?" He looked between the doctors, all now past the shock of the case and able to start making decisions about it. He'd been keen to get this part out of the way before they arrived, as fun as it had been to watch. "I mean, you're stuck here anyway because of those forms you signed, but you've still got a choice between sitting in a little room with a camera or playing doctor with R2-D2's kick-ass uncles."

Predictably, Kutner answered first and with no little enthusiasm. "I'm in."

"Just out of curiosity, me too," Thirteen replied, though her tone was distracted as she leant over to pick up Kutner's photographs. "I mean, just look at these things…"

Foreman shook his head when Taub gave a short nod of assent, leaving him feeling as though he possessed the most sanity inside the jet. "This is insane, you know that? Your level of insane."

House fluttered his lashes, the cane still spinning. "Thought that was part of my charm."

"Hell, we've had weird cases before," Taub murmured, taking Thirteen's file with a frown of concentration already firmly in place. To Foreman's silence, he gave the taller man a frank shrug. "What's another one on the pile? Besides, it's always a good idea to get in good with super-intelligent beings big enough to kill you without noticing."

* * *

_Next chapter, the Autobots…_


	3. Chapter 3

Only Human

_Chapter Three_

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Ratchet crossed the frosted Yard with quick steps towards the cordoned-off hanger where the afflicted mechs were staying. It hadn't been necessary to quarantine them from the other Autobots, but the only thing that slowed the accumulating fluid as a temperature that the frigid air couldn't reach. The giant freezers lining one wall of the hanger blast warm ripples of air out, the thick tubes passing through the metal wall coated in inches of ice.

Humans couldn't survive for long in this temperature, so Ratchet slid aside the door and stepped inside without any of the preamble of scanning and checking for organics that could be trodden on. Optimus and Ironhide were sat against the wall by the vents, their larger frames needing the constant blast of cold where Prowl and Bumblebee, sat opposite, only required a low ambient temperature to held their systems.

Finding Ironhide in recharge, which he'd been nagging for him to do for thirty-odd hours, the medic turned to Optimus first. Mingling on the floor were viscous puddles of energon, coolant and lubricants surrounded them, tacky to touch but refusing to freeze. The mix seeped out of all of the mech's major and minor vents in thin but deadly streams, and there were no wounds behind them that the medic could find.

Optimus shifted when Ratchet probed at the sides of his chassis, his optics dim from the lower-power mode that the temperature and the disease had forced. "Did you get your consult?"

Ratchet didn't look up from his work to answer, scraping out fluids that had permeated deep and were beginning to clog small, crucial parts. Losing the liquid was bad enough, but it was far more damaging to have it escaping into the mechs' systems than to have it accumulate on the floor. At first he'd been siphoning it out, a disruptive and uncomfortable treatment, but after dropping the temperature such drastic measures were no longer needed.

"Doctor House and his team will be landing within the hour." He'd wanted to make one last check before meeting with them, and the determination to leave them all in as a stable a state as possible whilst he did that made his hands quick and rough. "If they can't assist me in coming up with at least something to slow the progression of whatever this is as opposed to just the symptoms, we're going to have to discuss removing coolant components and using external resources to regulate the four of you."

Life support, Optimus translated with a mental sigh and slow look across the other frost-coated occupants of the hanger. The fluids they were losing weren't tainted and could be filtered and pumped back in without problem. External pumps for their systems could keep them alive indefinitely, but trapped on the base and useless in a fight. They'd been sending false chatter about missions for Soundwave to hack into so that the Decepticons wouldn't know to take advantage of their crippled and vulnerable state.

"What do you anticipate?" Optimus asked at last, tightening his hands into fists to stay still whilst Ratchet continued his brutal cleaning.

One thick shoulder rolled in a shrug, more helpless than dismissive. "They'll gawp for a few hours and be useless, then they're ask a lot of rudimentary questions and continue to be useless. Then," Ratchet paused, grimacing as he pulled an energon clot free to release a fresh torrent of fluids . "Hopefully, they'll be able to help me come up with fresh ideas."

Optimus fidgeted minutely, optics shuttering wearily. "You don't sound optimistic," he concluded softy, gaze shifted over the other afflicted mechs.

Finally satisfied with his work, Ratchet drew back and produced a cube of energon from a shoulder compartment. He'd decided to work on Prowl next. "This is looking more organic than mechanical, and I've run out of ideas. I exhausted every possibility before convincing NEST to permit outside help, and they're sending the best. Between Doctor House's intellect and my own, we'll solve this. Now, refuel and try to get some recharge. I'll have to have you assessed outside the cooler by his team."

* * *

The small jet had taxied into the central yard of the Diego Garcia base from the adjacent landing strip, a group of NEST soldiers led by Captain Lennox and flanked by exotic cars waiting to meet it. House had been first to the hatch opening onto the mobile stairs, and tucked his chin deeper into his throat against the bitter wind as Lennox jogged up.

"Welcome to Diego Garcia, Doctor," Lennox greeted curtly, voice taught with concern that had been mounting for days. "I'm afraid there's not a lot of time to get you settled, but we've prepared quarters by the Autobot's medical hanger for you."

House moved forward to place the cane on the first ribbed step, forcing Lennox backwards. "Is that where my patients are?"

The soldier quirked a smile at the mutual want to get on, though hovered as the man limped arduously down the steps. "No Sir. Prime and the others are in the cooler to slow whatever this thing is down. So far it's the only thing that's worked."

House noted the industrial freezing units lining the indicating warehouse, concluding that the refrigeration would be dramatic given how cold the air was naturally. "Effusions slowed by sub-zero temperatures," he shouted back without breaking stride.

At the back of their convoy, Kutner stopped to scrawl the note on the whiteboard he'd been charged with carrying. House didn't speak again until he'd reached the bottom of the steps and was standing on asphalt, and then his voice was terse. "Come on, people – it's intergalactic war if we let the aliens die."

"Could be a clotting issue," Thirteen supplied, jogging down the steps with her hands buried in her coat pockets.

"No clotting agents," Foreman replied flatly, only glancing back to check that Kutner was managing the board before jogging to catch up with House. Three soldiers moved past them to receive their cases from inside the jet, and Lennox found himself walking alongside the physicians towards the Medbay.

Taub eyed the three sports cars that looked to have no earthly business on a military base reverse and drive off into the largest hanger. Reading the enormous file on their way here still hadn't prepared him for the reality of sentient mechanical life. With effort, he turned his mind to the task at hand. "Their energon is a soup of compounds and electrolytes, but they have to physically close wounds with welds or patches."

"Not small ones," Kutner shouted from the back, struggling to keep up and carry the whiteboard without smudging the writing whilst looking around for aliens. "Cybertronians have micro-packages like nanites floating around in their mechanical lines. If they're injured, those little parcels open up to act like platelets and swarm on the breach, clogging it with a soft patch that'll harden over time."

Breath coming in white clouds from his mouth and nose, House stopped walking with a grimace and felt at his pockets. Resting his weight onto his undamaged leg, he took out the orange cylinder of Vicodin and swallowed three pills. Lennox watched the motion with a carefully neutral expression, reflecting on some of the more caustic descriptions of House that he'd been given whilst setting up this consult.

The doctor ignored his stare. "So, first question is does extreme cold improve the lego-platelet's efficiency, or is the increased viscosity pure chemistry?"

When no answer was forthcoming, Lennox nodded towards the Medbay hanger, keen to get them out of the cold wind. "Those are the kinds of questions that Ratchet will be answering for you. I just work with these guys."

"Is Ratchet with them now?" Thirteen asked, waiting beside Foreman for Kutner to catch up with them.

Lennox shook his head. "No, he finished their treatments a few minutes ago. He's waiting for you now."

House gave a decisive nod and lurched forwards towards the human-sized door in the base of the robot-sized one. The trepidation on Taub's face as Lennox opened the door for them didn't escape him. "Oh don't look so nervous. This is gonna be fun. Remember: These are the guys who practically invented proctology."


	4. Chapter 4

Only Human

_Chapter Four_

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When Ratchet requisitioned House and his team, he'd also requisitioned a frame like the one in the briefing hanger where Optimus conferenced with the human authorities. He was not going to stoop or squat in his own Medbay, and forcing the humans to constantly look up at him wouldn't expedite their work. The structure had been erected quickly and then furbished for medical use, with equipment and supplies on the lower levels and computers at the top. There was also a conference desk and comfortable chairs set just beneath Ratchet's eye level.

All of this was partway inside the Medbay, adjacent to but not so close to his workshop as to be hazardous, and far from the two working berths. He was scanning over the assorted equipment when the small door in one corner of the main hanger doors opened, and he turned to find the humans a respectful distance away. He motioned to the frame though didn't move into its centre, prepared to assist the disabled man should he not wish to use the stairs. "Doctors, my name is Ratchet, and I am the Autobot's medic. Thank you for coming so promptly."

High on adrenaline as much as anything else, House forced himself up the stairs at a speed that he would doubtless pay for later. "Well, we couldn't just let illegal aliens die because they don't have health insurance. Mi casa su casa," he replied easily, making it to the top level with his subordinates close behind, Kutner wrestling with the whiteboard. "I'm sure you already know everything there is to know about Foreman, Taub, Kutner and Thirteen here."

"The government has been generous with access in this matter," Ratchet replied evenly, his optics skimming over the contents of the whiteboard. "I see that you're already trying to draw parallels."

"Uh, we figured from the files that you'd have as much a similarity to humans as you do to, um, cars," Kutner explained awkwardly, one hand resting on the whiteboard as he used it as a partial shield.

Sending the files in advance had been wise, Ratchet decided with some relief. The hard facts and photographs had immunised them of much of their awe in coming into physical contact with a Cybertronian. In response to Kutner's remark, he pointed a digit as large as the board to an indeterminable item on the list. Immediately, Foreman, Taub and Thirteen jerked back whilst Kutner stepped closer into the back of the board.

House rolled his eyes. "Okay, I've said it before and I'll say it again: the size difference was fun at first but now it's just getting awkward. Haven't you got some nifty hologram or something that we can talk to?"

He did, but Ratchet had no intention of using it. He hated the damn thing and deeply resented having to make a fleshy puppet for the scant few occasions when Optimus decided it was required. "No. Why should I?"

"My team's also distracted by shiny things and you're made of metal, so…" He grimaced with wide eyes. "Awkward."

"Your species' fascination with the large and uncanny is your problem, not mine," Ratchet replied shortly, optics narrowing on the human. "Besides which, such supercilious use of phoney human counterparts to converse with humans is a Decepticon tactic."

Foreman leaned in to Thirteen surreptitiously. "What's a-"

"Bad guys with red eyes. There are good robot aliens and bad robot aliens. The good have blue optics, the bad have red," House announced with a glance to the pair before looking back to Ratchet, his tone turning complimentary. "Very neat, but then if we were as advanced as you then our genetic coding would have all the really deviant harlots as leggy bonds and the psychopaths who bring a U-haul to the first date as dumpy brunette librarians."

Ratchet's optics narrowed on House. "Your systems are flooded with narcotic analgesics."

The physician put a hand to his chest in a proxy blush. "If it wasn't, I wouldn't be anywhere near as insightful."

"Unfortunately true," Foreman drawled over the top of a file.

Huffing a sigh of hot air through his vents, Ratchet folded his arms. "Fine. The patients are being kept at minus-forty degrees to slow deterioration. I can release them for short periods from containment for you to make initial assessments. I will field more general queries which, no doubt, will number in the hundreds. As for interacting with a hologram, it would be best for you to become accustomed to our size and strength through me before my patients are exposed to you. I want your gawking out of the way so that you can start your work."

House gave a short nod, folding his hands atop his cane. "Sounds good." He looked expectantly to his team, arching a brow for them to begin.

"Alright, Doctor," Foreman began, sounding as if he were still sceptical of the Autobots' existence. It was going to be difficult to get started on this case due to its, literal, foreignness, so the sooner a professional dialogue could be established the better. "We reviewed the symptoms and basics of your physical makeup on the way here. Based on their conditions thus far and the disease's development, what symptoms are you predicting now?"

"Overheating due to the failure of their cooling systems, which is being circumvented for now by the external coolers," the medic explained, touching a component on the side of his helm to project a basic schematic between himself and the platform. He indicated to the areas of protoform, highlighted red and seeming frail inside the armour and weaponry outline. "I'm concerned that they're going to begin losing protoform, however, as their systems break it down to replenish the materials they're losing in the fluids."

"How detrimental would that be?" Thirteen asked, glancing up from the annotations she was making on a printed schematic that came with their files on the plane. "Is it the equivalent of starvation and fat loss?"

Shutting down the holographic display, Ratchet shook his head. "Unfortunately not. Our protoform is the most comparably organic part of us and takes time to grow. If they were just losing metals there wouldn't be cause for concern – I can amputate all armour and weaponry without a problem." He held up a hand, his fingers pinched around the essential point. "Protoform, however, cannot be as easily replaced once it's gone and takes time to grow, and Megatron is hardly going to wait whilst four of the Autobot's key warriors recover. So far they still believe us to be at full strength, and your kind can only pray that they remain so until this affliction is cured."

Kutner raised his hand, the gesture prompting House to roll his eyes though he remained silent. "Can't you transplant it from a healthy robot?"

"Protoform is the only thing aside from a spark that a –Cybertronian- cannot donate," Ratchet replied testily, shifting his weight across his feet. Perhaps this had been a terrible idea after all.

Taub considered the contents of the whiteboard again, flicking his pen between his fingers. "Is there any-"

"Alright, that's enough of MDs stumbling around like blind retards – I'm so sorry, -special people-, trying to smack the world's smallest piñata."

There was silence left in the wake of House's explosion at the head of the table, the glass of which was still ringing from where he'd slammed his cane on it. The adrenaline had worn off and he was in pain. "By Buddha, this is embarrassing." A pointed look at Ratchet. "I'm going to be pretty radical now and go back to when you guys were just wheels or Y2K bugs and ask the KISS question: How do they feel?"

Ratchet's optics shuttering was audible. It was entirely to convey sentiment rather than lubricate the delicate parts. "Excuse me?"

Placing the cane between his feet with both hands atop it, House pushed himself up slowly. "How. Do. They. Feel? You've studied this form every mechanical angle, run every technical diagnostic and examined this thing on the atomic level looking for an answer and come up with squat. No. Less than squat. You –wish- you had squat."

Standing beside the whiteboard, House tapped the notes demonstrably. "You've asked for an organic consult because these are organic symptoms, which are light-years apart from mechanical ones, and the thing with organics is that the patient can usually give you more clues about what's wrong with them than any test will. That's why Thirteen goes through the tedium of taking histories. So, I return to my simple yet brilliant question: How do they feel?"

Ratchet's gaze did not move from the physician whilst the other doctors exchanged looks. Finally, he simply unfolded his arms and took a half step towards the hanger doors. "I think it would be beneficial if you asked them yourselves."

House came up from a deep nod with a smirk, looking over his team. "Fantastic. We'll play the numbers to save time. I'll talk big-boy things with Ratch' here, whilst you four get me a list of robot feelings, hopes and dreams…" He pointed to each doctor in turn, sentencing them. "Foreman, you get Optimus. Thirteen, Prowl. Taub, you can have Bumblebee, and Kutner, Ironhide."

When nothing happened he clapped his hands and motioned to the doors. "Come on: giant alien robots, and we're getting paid to gawk and poke at them. Just remember that it's crass to ask for a probe on the first date."

* * *

_This fic is so much harder than I was expecting it to be to write - stupid medical thingies...  
_

_Thank you so much for reading. A review letting me know if you're enjoying it would be wonderful. ^_^  
_


	5. Chapter 5

Only Human

_Chapter Five_

_

* * *

_The air had become colder over the course of the day, a mercy to all but the humans. Ratchet decided it safer for the afflicted mechs to be consulted outside than for the humans to endure the gelid hanger. That the rest of the healthy Autobots were simultaneously dispatched to intercept a Decepticon landing in Brazil only enhanced the sense of dire urgency. Lennox had sent Epps to lead the mission with the argument that if there was another incident before the team could get back, the onus was wholly on the human component of NEST to respond. Currently, they were assisting with the group consult in the main Yard.

If it weren't for the grim necessity of the liquid nitrogen blasts, House would have ridiculed the spectacle of the four Autobot warriors emerging in billowing clouds of white. As it was, he stood silently gripping his cane on the Medbay platform and scrutinized the mechs through the open hanger door. Arranged in a semi-circle around the frosted yard, his team were elevated in position atop four cherry pickers, wrapped in thermal coats and gripping marker pens in their gloves. A NEST soldier accompanied each, holding a whiteboard for notes.

Ratchet's optics were bright with scans as he combed over all four mechs. He'd done all he could for now, but it was difficult to step back to allow this infantile species to make their own assessment. Different processors, different ideas, he reminded himself, folding his arms.

House drummed his fingers on the railing, watching the patients separate towards their individual doctors. With the information they had so far they'd hit a solid wall, they and couldn't advance into divergent theory until they had more to go on. In terms of test results, they had all the numbers – too many, in fact, and most of them of purely mechanical interest. He glanced again at the sparsely equipped Medbay, almost convinced that most of what Ratchet needed was incorporated into his body. "Is all this stuff off your spaceship?"

"No. We landed with the parts on our back. Everything you see here is fabricated using native materials or taken from the bodies of our kind." Ratchet spoke without emotional inflection, at a detached kind of peace with the necessities of survival. "For example, Decepticon armour has been melted down for the berths, and Jazz's processor makes up the CPU of the monitoring console, Primus help us… It's an imperfect solution, but in war, any solution is a solution."

Details of the deceased saboteur had been included in the overall report, and House saw no need to investigate the point. Instead he asked: "Why aren't you infected?" When Ratchet looked at him, he arched a brow. "That's actually important. I'm not just being nosey."

Detecting the decreasing body of heat of the man, and how he was favouring his good leg more and more, Ratchet moved to close the Medbay doors. "I may very well be infected but without symptoms – not knowing what to look for means I can't scan for it. And I know what you're thinking. Just as for your species, parts of our bodies are individual and simply not transplantable. As a medic I have a battery of hardware and software to keep me from being afflicted by almost anything one of my patients might have. Such systems are only compatible with medics; absolutely not for warrior or tactical models."

House nodded sharply, limping sideways into the closest chair and easing down into it. He lifted his cramping leg up onto the neighbouring chair and pulled the file into his lap whilst Ratchet watched. They had a lot to get through. "Talk me through your equivalent of a lymphatic system."

Ratchet spoke retrieving a cube of energon from his workbench, sipping it on the move. "Circulating Leukocyte Analogues, or CLAs. They protect our systems from contamination but they don't act as drains. Our energon lines do that job as part of circulation.

Scrawling the acronym onto the whiteboard they'd brought from the hospital and set up next to the table, House sat forward on his knees and stared at the information there.

_Decepticon bioweapon _X

_Cold raises viscosity. _

_Heat – stress aggravates?_

_Frequent flyers. _

_Domestic virus(Sasser?)__/__bacteria__/fungus_

_Protoform - sepsis_

_Human / __Truckasaurus_

_Lungs - Intake Manifolds / Vents _

_Brain - CPU_

_Blood - Energon / Type O _

_Neurons - Circuits_

_Lymph - CLAs_

_Spark - Consciousness / ''''''Soul''''''_

_Platelets - Clotting / minor-patch nanites_

He should have brought something to occupy his hands and help him think. House looked to Ratchet again, his voice light. "You don't happen to have any tennis balls laying about here, do you?"

* * *

Foreman's gaze travelled up the broad chassis to the being's helm, and Lennox raised the cherry picker a few more feet as subtly as possible. When they were finally face-to-face. Foreman continued to scrutinize the mech, some small part of his mind still insisting that this was a hoax, albeit an elaborate one. Optimus Prime, projecting the aura of patience that could wait for a star to die, simply stared back.

Ultimately it was Foreman who blinked first, fidgeting under the layers and jerking his head towards the white board being supported by Lennox. "My name is Doctor Foreman. I'm supposed to take a history from you."

Optimus shifted fractionally, seeming to ignore the prolonged blast of liquid nitrogen to his legs. "I had assumed that Ratchet's report would be nothing less than comprehensive, but go ahead."

The doctor exchanged a sidelong look with the soldier, whose expression was unreadable. There had been great age in that voice, as well as power and charisma. Coming from a twenty-eight foot being with weaponry that could level a city, it brought final credence to the fact that it was not native to this world. He was, Foreman iterated privately, taking a medical history from an alien robot.

Ratchet's files answered the obvious questions, so this had to be a human approach. "When did you start to feel sick?"

"I became aware that I was, sick, nine days, fourteen hours and eleven minutes ago when my operations fell entirely out of normal parameters and I began to lose fluids."

Something rattled suddenly and loudly enough to catch Lennox's attention. He leant over the rail and hollered down at the NEST soldiers to move. There was a prolonged blast of white, and even with the face plate in place Foreman could see the pain. A shudder and then the rattle stopped, replaced by the sound of a vent wheezing louder than it had before.

"You alright, Optimus?" Lennox called, surprising Foreman with the genuine and deep concern so obviously felt.

Blue optics turned brighter, sharper, and Optimus nodded. "I'm well enough to continue, Doctor. Please." A glance left to the other mechs being interviews. "I fear that time is a factor."

Foreman scrubbed a thickly gloved hand across his eyes and nose, trying to ease some of the biting cold. "Your doctor's already given us all the technical specs and, to be frank, more concrete data than we know what to do with. Usually we start with a history, then narrow down to the tests."

"A more organic approach," Optimus concluded softly, seeming to ignore the returning deep rattle that triggered the NEST soldiers to give another blast.

There wasn't time for coddling, Foreman read, and set his mouth to ignore the sounds of battling symptoms as well. "That's right. With that in mind, when did you start feeling run down? Any lethargy, depression, loss of appetite?"

"As a fuel we don't have the same emotional relationship with Energon as humans seem to towards food," Optimus replied, consciously searching for anything that Ratchet might not have asked for because it seemed irrelevant. "My fuel intake has increased significantly since the leaks started, but that is necessity and warning messages. I have not desired a cube of High Grade in over a month, however," he trailed off thoughtfully. "That is the only substance we intake now that is not from necessity."

Foreman noted the timeframe and 'appetite loss' on the white board, quirking a brow at Lennox. "High Grade?"

"Cybertronian beer," Lennox replied with a weak grin. "Sideswipe's got a sill that, officially, no one knows about."

"And getting good results," Optimus added absently, touching a hand to a side event to confirm just how little air was circulating.

* * *

Thirteen had had to pull off the pen cap with her mouth, her hands already stiff with cold inside the mittens. Obviously used to the weather, the NEST soldier to her side offered to take over the task of scribe. It was cramped on the platform and they were largely looking down at Prowl, but the elevation was predominantly for the soldiers to spray the liquid nitrogen safely.

"I'm sorry to need to ask such rudimentary questions," she apologised for the second time, something about the stiff angle of the mech's doorwings somehow conveying irritation. "I've never treated an extraterrestrial, and the smallest clue can lead to an answer."

"That's quite acceptable, Doctor," Prowl replied, twisting as a blast of white swept directly up a dorsal vent. "Ask your questions."

With nothing in her hands, Thirteen folded her arms and tucked her hands against her sides. "Had you been experiencing any nausea before the effusions started?"

Prowl's optics shuttered briefly. "I don't have a stomach."

"I mean, in terms of Cybertronian equivalents," she added quickly, sensing that she'd been given a particularly pedantic bot. "Ratchet wants us to ask the questions we would ask a human patient."

The tactician cocked his head, seemingly forgetting the soldiers about his feet. "But why? He could ask these questions himself using a library of your medical text books, which he could assimilate and recall with far greater speed and efficiency than you."

Somehow the matter-of-factness of his tone raised her hackles more than the words themselves did. "You could make the same argument for anyone with Internet access. We have human intuition and atypical experience with a range of maladies that were assigned to Doctor House purely because the other doctors couldn't just find the answer in a book."

Prowl's expression remained impassive, though he nodded slightly. "My apologies, but this is an unusual situation, and I'm highly aware of how young your species is."

"That's fine," Thirteen murmured, bringing her hands up to cup her face and trap her breath about her nose. After a few seconds, she forced her hands down and repeated the question.

The mech considered silently before his doorwings twitched. "My equilibrium and internal thermal sensors had malfunctioned on occasion, which caused me to, feel, unstable. I did not report it to Ratchet, however, as I assumed it to be a minor glitch that my code would repair automatically."

"Are those kinds of 'glitches' common?"

"They occur periodically and aren't often a cause for concern, but I would not describe them as common."

Thirteen dictated 'nausea' and 'dizziness' for the board. "Is there a history in your family of these kinds of glitches?"

"Not notably," Prowl replied, optics darkening by such a small degree that if she had been on the ground she wouldn't have seen it.

"Can you describe how you felt in yourself in the days before you got sick?" Thirteen went on, falling into something close to the habit of taking histories. House had insisted the Autobots be treated as if they were regular, terrestrial, human patients. "Any apathy, depression, agitation when you might not have otherwise felt it?"

In the periphery of his optic, Prowl looked across to Bumblebee. He wondered how the scout was getting on with being asked about his feelings.

* * *

Taub had given up on questions after less than two minutes of sound clips. It appeared that Bumblebee's vocaliser, which was often temperamental anyway, had been completely clogged and compromised by the leaking and clotting fluids. Thus, they were improvising.

"Okay, if you press down on that panel, you should be over your pressure regulating... thing."

Taub had his hand pressed against his lower left side, mirroring the scout. When Bumblebee chirped confirmation, he motioned for him to apply pressure. "Does that hurt? Have you got any kind of discomfort in that spot?"

Bumblebee shook his head, fidgeting awkwardly as he felt his systems beginning to gradually slide back into dangerous levels despite the efforts of the soldiers and the liquid nitrogen. It didn't help his confidence that it had been the same equipment that had overpowered him for capture and experimenting upon some years before.

"Central seam, now," Taub guided, indicating with both hands and pressing on his sternum. "Any aching or abnormal feeling emanating from your spark?"

Bumblebee began to touch as directed, but froze with a whine. A loud and generally unhealthy sound issued from his vents, and he knelt to give NEST better access to his chassis. The fluid that coughed out was thick, and Taub watched it turn matt under the nitrogen blasts.

"Bumblebee, could you touch that stuff?" he shouted, pointing to the leak already tapering off from the side vent he'd pressed moments ago. Ratchet had told them in no uncertain terms not to touch anything that came out of the mechs' systems.

The scout warbled and drew his fingers through the fluid.

"Does the stuff that's been cooled feel different? Thicker? Uh, tackier?"

It was stickier, not thicker, as they had assumed. That was the real reason that the leaks slowed with cold. Stickiness and viscosity was an important distinction to make, Taub reflected, beginning to make notes on his own whiteboard.

* * *

Ironhide watched his doctor with a mildly puzzled frown, and was privately grateful that he'd had so much exposure to Samuel and Mikaela over the years. He had developed a tolerance for children.

Kutner was grinning and had yet to stop. Or ask a question. "Seriously, I knew you guys were real. That Johnson footage from Mission City – no way that could be faked. And you are so much cooler in real life – you have no idea. I guess you get used to being cool when you're a walking powerhouse, though. When you guys get better, I've got to come back and see you in action, blowing up cars and stuff."

The dark mech sagged a little on his hydraulics, the protoform-deep exhaustion that had been haunting his frame for days grinding him down. Compliments were generally welcomed, particularly about his battle prowess, but he wasn't in the mood. Furthermore, the localised blasts of cold weren't anywhere near as effective as the hanger had been.

"Look Doc, I don't know if Ratchet tried hard enough to get how serious it is to have our Prime dying, let alone the rest of us, into the fleshy polyp at the top of your spinal cord, but if you don't get down to work in the next five seconds, I'll start applying my own brand of incentive."

A pause, before which the smile had already gone. Kutner brought a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. "Do you have any allergies?"

Ironhide cycled a microcannon inside its hatch, the idle gesture barely loud enough to be heard. "Our systems adapt to every atmosphere we enter, and there is little we cannot tolerate for at least a short period. We are not as, sensitive, as your species."

"We'll you're definitely sensitive to something," Kutner murmured, his gaze wandering. When he found Ironhide staring he cleared his throat. "Look, you're an alien, and this is a first time for me. Awesome in the extreme, but new. I only got the manual to your physiology yesterday, so cut me a break with any dumb questions, okay? I mean, they're probably the ones that Ratchet didn't think to ask, which is exactly why he's called us here."

The mech considered that a moment before grunting compliance. They were having this consultation because Ratchet had exhausted the intelligent options, after all. "Continue."

"Okay. So you're effectively puking this stuff, because it's energon-based and that's your food."

"Fuel, and it is also our lifeblood, as you would say."

"Right." He sucked his tongue thoughtfully, reiterating to himself that this patient was not human and that anything was possible. "You're not having a reaction to something external, because you've been here for a few years, have adapted anyway, and done more globetrotting than your average gap year student. With the expulsions, it's likely something internal that's the problem. Something that's changed." Alien, alien, lateral thinking. "Could you be pregnant?"

The cannon whine was in no way muffled or quiet. Ironhide barely moved, but the air was suddenly charged.

Kutner nodded briskly and began to scrawl on the whiteboard. "Not that, then. Moving on..."

* * *

"So the spark, as a physical manifestation of consciousness, doesn't in itself regulate any systems," House surmised from where he sat throwing bolts into a stray NEST soldier's hat, positioned at the far end of the conference table. Ratchet was setting up a battery of fans and coolant reservoirs on the closest berth, in anticipation of the inevitable system failures in the mechs if they couldn't resolve this quickly. "And unconscious physical behaviour and language is dictated by a secondary level of consciousness that exists solely in the CPU."

"That's correct," Ratched affirmed absently, transforming the microfilaments of his hand that he'd been using to calibrate the pumps back into its normal composition. "The spark feels, for example, sadness, and the processor translates that emotive response into a change in optical luminosity, doorwing alignment, arrangement of the facial micro-plates, and so on."

"Does that mean influence can go back the other way?" Out of bolts, House levered himself to his feet and used the table in place of the cane to cross the platform. He pocketed the bolts one at a time, brow furrowed. "Physiological symptoms causing mental, 'spark' symptoms, taking an impact on the CPU as a given."

Ratchet didn't respond, and after a few seconds House realised that he'd stopped working as well, standing frozen as if listening to something. When he moved it was suddenly and all at once, crossing to the hanger door in three steps and flinging it open. "Decepticon signatures closing in – back in the cooler and lock it the Pit down," he barked, moving back to the platform before the inevitable protests could begin.

House watched his team being lowered back to the ground, the soldiers accompanying them raising their weapons and clearly taking guard of them. Lennox jumped the platform before it was fully lowered, shouting to Optimus who knelt to converse.

"I thought the bad guys didn't know where your base was." He hadn't realised that Ratchet had moved to pick him up until the medic's hands were almost scooping him up. "Hey – doctor, not a dormouse."

Ratchet made no remark, lifting the human with experienced care and setting him down next to the three-tiered structure. "They've been searching for years." His voice was clipped, and House watched as the mech's armour shifted to cover purely diagnostic components. Two enormous circular saws spun out. "We've buried our signatures in background radiation and the like, but something about this disease has obviously caused a spike that Soundwave's picked up."

The Yard was filling with NEST soldiers and a plethora of large scale weaponry. In the centre, Lennox and Optimus were having a heated disagreement whilst the others spread out with their weapons raised. All the nitrogen equipment had been abandoned for weaponry, and the four doctors were sprinting for the Medbay door.

Ratchet stepped over the threshold with a backwards glance to House. "Get down under cover, and don't move until I tell you to."

* * *

_The action is only going to be a brief thing - this is more _House _than _Transformers_, but I didn't just want to write a fic that was purely talking._


	6. Chapter 6

_First of all, I'm sorry for the huge wait for chapter . This has been a very difficult story to plan and write, and near-impossible to work on when RL stuff flares up. Back at it now, though, and with one of those action chapters that are so hard to write to boot... Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy how this picks up from where it left off._

* * *

Only Human

_Chapter Six  
_

* * *

'Don't move until I tell you to'.

House had gotten an MD in part because he didn't like being told what to do, and he sure as hell wasn't going to miss out on his first giant alien robot battle, no matter what a do-gooding giant alien robot said. Whilst Ratchet took position outside the hanger doors, one hand reaching back to slide them closed, House hurled his weight forward in long limping strides to get out onto the tarmac. His hand trembled around his cane when he made it outside, his leg a knot of cramping agony, and he lent sideways into the hanger wall as he took in the scene.

It was surreally disconnected – the feeling akin to drinking after having mixed morphine and Vicodin, playing Gerry Rafferty quietly in the dark. Sound was muted, everything in the same level of focus, and despite the spectacle he felt neither fear nor shock. His team was being herded by gunfire and swinging blades, the bearers darkly armoured and conveniently red-eyed to denote their side. Attacking close: either unaware of the contagion in their opponents or too charged with the metallic war machine version of adrenaline to notice the weeping vents, heaving ineffectually.

The afflicted Autobots drew his stare more than the actual battle itself, and House watched them as he'd watch any patient undergoing a stress test. There was obvious skill and strength, and though he could see the heat shimmers around their leaking vents, they were overheating fast. The lags in response time were obvious after Ratchet had described them as symptomatic of their cooling systems failing, and all four of them missed their shots and met blows late in increasing margins.

A screech of tires and the twisting wallop of transforming on the move signalled the arrival of the Twins and Sideswipe, bursting out of the hanger on the other side of the freezer before the doors had finished opening. Pigeons from the steel rafters followed them out, flying in dizzy spirals before a flying Decepticon put a deliberate stream of bullets through them and turned the flock into an exploded cushion. The feathers fell slowly, burning.

Sideswipe bellowed the jet's designation to be Starscream, sliding at an angle that would have burst the tyres of the car he was imitating to explode up in sharp, morphing angles and a hailstorm of firepower. Starscream met him laughing, flying into the attack to push the mech bodily back towards the main scrum.

* * *

Thirteen fell into Foreman and toppled them both when the ground ahead of them blistered with a line of shots. They'd barely gotten to their feet when a massive shadow fell across them. There had been something awe-inspiring in standing in the shadows of the Autobots, but this was purely terrifying. No consideration for where their fragile bodies were in relation to cooling vents and flexing parts. No restrained movements so as not to alarm.

The ground actually shook when Megatron finally landed, optics vivid and casting bloody shadows across the angular planes of his helm. They settled on the team of Doctors, alight with interest.

Taub staggered to a stop just behind Thirteen and Foreman, his knees suddenly feeling hollow and weak. "Holy-"

The living machine growled. Before Taub could scramble into a retreat, a shrieking clatter alerted him to another Decepticon's presence moving behind them. It circled them.

The fluid-fast mech swept out to threaten the youngest doctor into the group, sharp optics meeting their gazes in turn. A shoulder-cannon destroyed all four cherry pickers in quick, almost nonchalant succession.

"What do we do?" Kutner shouted over the din of gunshots, crashing metal and whining engines.

Foreman cast about to try to determine exactly that, one arm across Thirteen's shoulders and keeping her down. The Autobots were engaging and trying to force the Decepticons off of the Yard, but with their staggering movements and relative sensor-blindness, they were almost as dangerous to get close to. There was no cover, and Megatron stood between them and the Medbay hanger where Ratchet was fighting to protect the door. The only other option was the freezer three hundred yards behind them.

Foreman reached a decision, implementing it before he even announced it: "Run!"

"Yes: Try to run, insects," Megatron sneered, his voiced underlined with a sound that raised their hackles on an instinctive level. Taking a teasing step forward, he angled up the massive arm-cannon and charged it with a whine. The barrel glowed, transfixing and deadly.

Orange sparks cracked off of Megatron's helm before he took the shot, Lennox running in to the clustered doctors with his rifle firing continuously to draw his attention. The angular helmet protected his optics – the only place a standard bullet could make a difference. Before the soldier could begin shouting orders over the din, Optimus leapt over their heads with a screech of hydraulics to plough bodily into the Decepticon. When they fell together, it shook the ground hard enough to take the retreating doctors off their feet.

They rolled together with deafening screeches of metal underscored with genuine sounds of effort and pain. The doctors could only stare, the sounds of battle around them blurring together into a single almighty drone. With the two enormous mechs going pede-to-pede at such close range, Lennox had no choice but to drag Kutner about by his collar and shove him towards the freezer, hoping the others would quickly find their feet again and follow.

* * *

Ironhide had had to kneel to aim without shaking at Ravage, the lithe mech leaping about the edges of the Yard. When Optimus, stupidly, charged, he'd moved to intercept his Commander before Barricade had intervened with a volley of shots. The canny mech was weaving with the same speed and unpredictability as Ravage, forcing his tracking sensors to chase them both despite how it sent his equilibrium sensors into a spiral. The Decepticons seemed to be testing them, disrupting any attempt at formation and picking at them individually.

Scoring a solid hit that sent Barricade twisting back into the ground to put out the flames, Ironhide flashed a sensor over Optimus to check his progress in the private duel he'd predictably become engrossed with. At seeing how poorly the Prime was holding his ground, he growled through gritted dentals: "I'm gonna fragging kill him!"

Prowl, though his weapons were out, was not actively firing. Instead he scrutinized how Ravage and Barricade aborted their close-range attacks, firing more at the NEST soldiers and the four uninfected Autobots than at them. As the fight went on, rather than drawing their attacks in closer to wear them down, they were giving more and showing signs of mounting hesitation.

"They know something's wrong," he shouted, moving to stand next to Bumblebee. The asphalt shattered in an explosion to their left, sending debris into their armour, and they felt as much as saw a second blast going off close to the requisitioned doctors.

They were running for the cold hanger, which had some shielding from all the insulation it had been wrapped in. It was also the closest structure with the fewest combatants in the way, on the other side of the Yard to where Optimus and Megatron were tussling.

The tactician's vents spasmed, clogged, and he gripped Bumblebee's shoulder to summon the scout's attention even as he continued to fire blue flashes. "Get House's staff to safety. If they die, we all die."

* * *

"So what is this, my dear Prime?" Megatron leered, chassis to burning chassis with the slimmer mech, currently pinned on his back. "Poorly refined energon? Something from letting the fleshlings crawl all over you? Have you been jacking into ports you shouldn't have?"

His hand arced out wide, the end transforming into a spiked mace before it slammed down into the Peterbuilt's side with a viscous spray of fluid. Megatron savoured the sight of the wound, and the shout of the pain it brought about. "It'll almost be a shame to put you out of your misery, but I'll accept you lying before me as depreciated scrap from your own ineptitude."

With a groan of effort, Optimus twisted Megatron bodily off of him and rolled back. Static was crowding the edges of his optical sensors and his cooling system feel like one massive ache of blockages and overheating. It was a feat to rise to one knee, head jerking once in the negative. "It's a sickness, one that-"

The Decepticon didn't miss a beat, lunging forward in a low stance to sink the claws of one hand into Optimus's shoulder whilst his other fist cracked resoundingly across the scarred faceplate. Optimus staggered again, falling back so that the heavier mech was straddling him as he had been minutes before.

Despite the mounting disorientation, the choking in his systems and the boiling of his fluids over parts that had become far, far too hot, Optimus caught the next fist and met Megatron's optics. "A sickness, Megatron. Contagious and lethal."

Finally Megatron hesitated, optics narrowing to slits as he sought a deception in the blue lights squinting back at him. It lasted moments, and then he bared his teeth in a smile as if amused by Optimus's attempt at a lie. He curled one hand around the mech's throat, ignoring the feeling of wetness his plates encountered there. "There is no disease dangerous to us on this planet, and nothing that our systems cannot overcome."

Optimus shuttered his optics to make the world spin a little slower, his cooling systems now sending his main tank into distress. "Not this," he choked, one hand coming to close around Megatron's wrist. The Decepticon was listening, doubt ebbing away in visible decrements. "And we have not found a cure."

* * *

Ironhide took great pleasure in seizing the Seeker's foot as he passed and using the jet's own momentum to slam him into the ground. Dragging himself atop the twisting body as it broke down into bipedal form, Ironhide rained down blows and allowed the fluids seeping from his vents to run freely onto the body beneath him.

Largely odourless, the mix of energon and particle-rich fluids gave off a caustic stench when they superheated against the jet's engines. It smelt sickly and cloying.

Starscream hissed, indignant and disgusted in equal measure, the claws of his hands catching and tearing at the dark mech's plates as he slashed back. At the back of his processor, beneath the seething battle codes and myriad of tactical assessments, his sensors were hounding that something was terribly wrong. That this temporary weakness in the Autobots that they had come to exploit had been vastly underestimated. That, once again, Megatron's impatience and recklessness had veered them towards something like doom.

Seeing realisation dawning in Starscream's bright optics, Ironhide narrowed his with a leer and leaned in close. A petty part of him felt that the way the Seeker jerked, alarmed, was worth the dozen or so lacerations the move cost him.

He savoured the words, dropping them into the Seeker's lap just as the tainted fluids he'd been haemorrhaging to death from fell between the angular plates.

"You're infected, Screamer."

Nothing for a moment, and then Starscream's engines howled.

* * *

At the velocity with which he slid between Barricade and the doctors, Sideswipe's body would have sparked were it not for the ice. The Decepticon had managed to veer them away from the cold hanger without firing a shot, lunging in front of them before raising his arms to take savouring aim. Sideswipe wasted no time in flipping his body sideways towards the broader bot, a heavy blade following the momentum of his body into Barricade's side.

Seeing the doctors trying to skirt around them towards the hanger, Barricade fired off a wild spray of needle-like bullets until Sideswipe incapacitated his arm by means of severing it. Snatching up the limb with a growl, Barricade took advantage of the Autobot's vigilant glance towards the humans to lurch away. He caught the scent of blood just before the yellow Camero screamed past him in a handbrake turn.

The doctors immediately clambered into the car when the doors were flung open, one being dragged, and were visible through the windows as being sprawled across one another as Bumblebee tore away from the fighting mechs and towards the hanger. By remote access code, the door slid open just enough and just long enough to get them inside.

Between the humidity of four sweating humans inside and the frigid temperature outside, the Camero's windows steamed up within seconds of entering the freezer. Feeling a spreading dampness against her outer thigh, Thirteen abandoned trying to see out to feel what was touching her leg, jerking her had back when Taub shouted in pain.

Foreman climbed into the front passenger seat to give them more room, one hand going to his head where a sizeable lump was growing. "Is anyone else hurt?" he asked, bracing his elbow against the headrest.

Extracting herself from beneath Taub, Thirteen pressed against the side of the car and took his shoulders into her lap. "It's just Taub, I think."

"Yeah, lucky me," Taub bit out, face tight as he squeezed around his knee with both hands whilst trying not to look at the impaling fragments.

"They didn't hit an artery," Kutner assured, sitting back from where they were crushed together in the back seat and beginning to unravel the scarf from around his neck. Through the material of the thick trousers, eight metal needles edged with barbs protruded down the side of Taub's calf. There was no way to guess how deep they went, and the youngest doctor began tying a tourniquet just above his knee. "These things could have toxins or anything in them."

The cold was already seeping in, stinging their chests and leaving ice crystals on the windows from where they breathed white mist. Foreman grasped Taub's wrist and counted the fluttering pulse for fifteen seconds, rubbing his eyes when he was satisfied with the rate. Toxins or not, that was still a bad wound and there was a very big fight happening outside. Or at least he assumed there was – they couldn't actually hear anything over the roar of the freezer units lining an entire wall.

"Okay," he started, pointing at the roof with a frown. "What, or who are we in right now?"

"Bumblebee," Taub replied through gritted teeth, closing his eyes as he tried to ascertain if the numbness spreading through his limbs was a result of shock, the cold or something else. "One of the sick ones."

Foreman nodded in acknowledgement before turning to address the dashboard, one hand resting on the side of the radio. "Bumblebee? Can you hear me?" A warble ending with a clunked chirp came back, and he looked back to Taub for enlightenment. "And that's robot for what?"

Gripping the edge of the seat to pull himself upright, Taub ignored Thirteen's protests to stay lying down. "His voice box got shot by the disease and he has to communicate in soundbites."

Swearing under his breath, Foreman pressed thumb and forefinger to his closed eyes for a few seconds to regain his composure before looking back to the other doctors. "Did anyone see House out there?"

Thirteen and Kutner exchanged a look before she spoke up. "Last I saw he was still in the Medbay with Ratchet."

"And Ratchet was defending that hanger pretty seriously when the Cans turned up," Kutner added. "I think he's safe."

"'Cons'," Taub corrected with a hiss, one hand feeling blindly around the spines penetrating his leg and idly marvelling at how little blood there was now. "And I wouldn't be so sure about his staying safe. I'm not saying that House wants to be a hero, but that his curiosity and pig-headedness vastly overshadow any sense of self-preservation he might still have."

"Agreed," Foreman murmured with a sigh, touching the lump on his head with gentler fingers now as the throbbing ache spread further. His stomach was doing all sorts of tricks, which could either indicate concussion or simply shock from the fight outside. "I think the best thing we can do for now is to just wait it out. Let the big robots finish and then, if there are any patients left, get back to work."

A low whistle from Bumblebee, which Kutner immediately translated as: "He agrees. Best to sit tight."

Taub scoffed, though weakly. "And you understand R2-D2 now?"

Kutner said nothing for a moment, returning to contemplating the metal spines in his colleagues' leg. The cold pressed in, and the silence somehow made it worse. He hovered a finger over one of the silver tips, careful not to actually touch the alien material. "I wonder if they'd mind if I kept one of these."

Despite the situation, Thirteen smiled a little at him. "I don't think secret government facilities let you keep souvenirs."

"Maybe," Kutner conceded with a frown, nodding to the injured leg a little. "But Taub's gonna have a souvenir. That's going to leave a wicked scar."

A beat as the younger man's tone settled in, and Taub found the strength to sit a little more upright with incredulity in his face and voice. "You think this is cool, don't you? That I'm going to have half the side of my leg mangled from a fight with aliens?"

"Well, it's a little cool."

Thirteen rolled her eyes a little. "Yeah, and then maybe you can get a cool cane and-"

She was cut off by a gear-grinding 'cough' from Bumblebee's engine before he began to roll backwards, coming to a stop just ahead of the doors. They waited in silence, straining to hear anything over the airy roar of the freezing units and the ticking engine.

Finally Bumblebee gave another chirp, higher than any so far, and there was a rattling creak as the doors began to slowly slide open. Dim shadows moved across the frosted windows, and Foreman tried to wipe away some of the frost with his sleeve. He chanced the translation when Kutner remained mute. "I guess that means it's over. Now we just have to find out who won."

* * *

_And the Decepticons are as __happy with this turn of events as the Autobots are. Back to the diagnosing and pithy sna-marks next time_.


	7. Chapter 7

Only Human

_Chapter Seven_

* * *

Ironhide's silhouette backed Prowl's at they came out of the frosty light into the freezing hanger, their movements turning stiff and sluggish as battle protocols wound down and returned priority to the myriad of system warnings crowding their processors. The weapons specialist knelt with a grunt next to Bumblebee, making a vague coaxing gesture towards the doctors inside.

"Come on – show's over," he rumbled, optics narrowed and dimming incrementally. "Ratchet needs you in the hanger, and we need to drop the temperature in here."

At Bumblebee's affirming whistle, Foreman followed the motion of the opening Camero door and found his footing on the slippery floor. The seat popped forward and clear in a way not possible in an ordinary car, allowing Kutner to ease out with one of Taub's arms already around his shoulders. Foreman got under the injured doctor's other arm and helped him to swing his leg out.

Once House's team had left and Prowl had slammed the frosted hanger door behind them, Ironhide began to chuckle. There had been no levity since it was confirmed that the disease was fatal, and now the weapon's specialist was laughing as though he'd just watched a Con botch their transformation sequence and come out a Prius.

Bumblebee's body shifted with whines and clicks edged with wetness into bipedal mode. He sat back heavily against the walls, vents wheezing in the frozen air. "What's so funny?" The young mech was too exhausted to sound perturbed.

"Got Screamer," Ironhide grunted through gritted teeth, his laugher quickly deteriorating into thick gasps as clots of energon were dislodged. He heaved himself to sit against one of the main freezer vents. "Just dumped a load of contaminated energon into his chassis. 'should have seen his face." His voiced turned quieter, but the grim satisfaction was clear. "Optimus got Megatron just as good. Pit, if the Decepticons get infected, it's almost worth it."

"Where is Prime?" Bumblebee asked, optics widening when he realized that he hadn't seen the Autobot Commander since he'd run at Megatron, despite the crippling sickness.

"Sunstreaker and Sideswipe took him into the Medbay," Prowl replied, hand coming to rest across his visor. That skirmish had been the last thing they'd needed, and if the Decepticons hadn't so abruptly retreated, it would likely have killed them. " Prime's condition has deteriorated to the point of needing external aid."

Ironhide shuttered his optics, tipping his helm back until it rested against the icy metal. "Frag. It can't end this way."

A beat of silence, as toxic and cloying as the viscous fluids threatening to suffocate them. Bumblebee broke it before it could become oppressive, his voice certain and absolute. "It wont. Doctor House is just like Ratchet – he won't give up. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't the best."

* * *

"You, _Doctor_, are a fragging idiot."

Slick up to his elbows in tacky energon, Ratchet was connecting the external pumps, lines and filters with a confident speed and proficiency cultivated through immeasurable experience of dire necessity. Optimus was offline, systems flickering on the verge of stasis lock, but the medic was expert enough to continue his blistering tirade regardless.

"Staying out of sight does not mean for you to go into a fragging battle zone and _gawp_."

Sitting in one of the rolling chairs on the upper level of the platform, House's eyes were lowered and distant. He had yet to speak, and hadn't moved since struggling up the metal steps since the Decepticons had left.

Ratchet was far from finished. "Not only did you endanger your own life – you risked the only possible chance I have of saving our Prime and the others, which I now realize was a nanite's chance in the Pit's hottest smelter because you're just as moronic as any child I could have taken off a _schoolbus_."

"Lay off, Ratchet," Foreman broke in flatly, looking up from where he was cutting away the bloodied material from Taub's trouser leg. The older doctor was led back on a cot, waiting for the morphine to kick in.

The metal spines exposed, Foreman took up a pair of large tweezers. "Yelling at him isn't going to help anyone."

Thirteen returned from the cabinet of human medical supplies with her arms full of gauze. She placed them at Taub's feet, looking up at the platform. "I think he's in shock."

Standing back and out of the way, Kutner tipped his head thoughtfully. "I think he's having an epiphany."

"I think he's useless," Ratchet snarled, snapping the last regulating line into place beneath Optimus's jaw. One final check over the tubes that would take any leaked energon into storage container, and he was finally satisfied enough to stop for a moment. With a loud vent, he pressed his hands against the top of the berth and flicked a scan over Taub. "Those are safe to just pull out. There're no toxins, and they're magnetised, not barbed."

"Thanks for that," Taub murmured, squinting as he tracked the beams overhead to their joins and cross-sections. He hissed as Foreman tugged out the first sliver of metal. "How's Optimus doing?"

Ratchet looked up from the still form on the berth, his expression softening. For a moment he debated just how much to tell them, and how much of it was going to be useless 'techno-babble' to their ears. Finally, he simply said, "Stabilised."

Silence dragged out for several minutes as Ratchet focussed on making small calibrations to the equipment, and the cluster of human doctors focussed on treating Taub's leg.

Then, from atop the platform, with all the suddenness of an explosion:

"That was fantastic."

A slow grin spread across House's mouth. "Better than a stress test, inside an MRI whilst Anne Hathaway performs a lumbar puncture in one of the PVC nurses uniforms that I had delivered to Cuddy's house last Christmas."

No one spoke. Ratchet rolled his optics with an irritated engine grumble and picked up the suction pump, manoeuvring it to clear out the unconscious Prime's side-chassis cooling vents. Thirteen finished bandaging Taub's leg and gave him a reassuring, though tight smile. Foreman rubbed his eyes. Kutner folded his arms and watched Ratchet work in silence.

At the complete lack of response from his team or the alien robot doctor, House heaved himself to his feet and limped to stand against the railings. From the platform he had a clear view of what Ratchet was doing as well as the doctors on ground-level. He looked between them with a frown. "Were any of you even watching the fight?"

"No," Foreman replied testily, finally looking up the platform. "We were trying not to get killed."

"And that's why I'm head of diagnostics and you're not," House snapped back with more venom than he'd intended. He took the pot of Vicodin from his pocket, sliding three into his hand as he spoke. "Okay, first of all, a stress test isn't really a 'stress' test. It's a 'run your fat ass on this treadmill' test. A stress test would be Kutner chasing them in warpaint with a blow torch whilst Taub tries to have an honest conversation with his wife about their marriage."

"What, are you getting at?" The question came from between Taub's gritted teeth.

Ratchet leaned in closer, optics narrowing and plates tightening. "Yes, Doctor House, because I've reached my capacity for acerbically moronic witticisms in place of actual medical doctrine."

Unperturbed by Ratchet's thinly veiled threat, House leaned his weight harder into the cane and off his throbbing leg, gesturing with his other hand. "Stress, for you guys, is really stress. Ongoing war –constant threat of attacks and, more significantly, actual surprise attacks. You were keeping them in the chiller because the cold slowed the progress of this disease in their day to day activities. The real stress, when the Decepticons showed up, didn't re-accelerate the disease."

"It certainly looks like it did," Thirteen muttered from the floor, clearing away the used supplies from around Taub's cot.

Before House could make a retort, the door embedded like a cat-flap into the main hanger doors opened to admit Lennox, weapon still in hand and sweat glistening on his forehead. The soldier looked to Ratchet and indicated outside with his thumb. "I've got some pressure hoses coming down to clear off the Yard. There's a hell of a lot of contaminated stuff out there."

"Three hundred and forty-one litres by my scans - contact with which would be just as inadvisable to humans as it is for us," Ratchet added with firm conviction, sending a reminder to the unaffected Autobots to stay far away during the clean-up.

"Hazmat suits and being careful. We should be fine." Lennox's brow furrowed a little, his mouth turning downwards. "How's the boss-bot doing? You guys getting anywhere with finding a cure?"

Ratchet's already troubled expression turned into an outright glower, optics flashing heat, which Lennox took to be a less-than-positive indicator. One look to Doctor House's team confirmed that theory, and he started to back towards the door. "Okay – well, good luck with it. Just radio if you need anything. Should take about an hour to clean the Yard, and then we'll be off-site disposing of it."

"According to my instructions." The reminder was a fraction too sharp to be interpreted as friendly. However the soldier simply nodded and shut the door behind him.

It was Kutner who finally broke the silence that followed after the metallic reverberation of the hanger door closing peeled off. "Three hundred and forty-one litres… Wow. That's, like, the gas tanks of two and a bit Toyota Padros." At Thirteen's frown, he shrugged. "What? I know car stuff."

"From watching _Top Gear_ on the Internet," Taub drawled from the bed, rubbing a hand across his partially-numbed face. The pain in his leg was a distant memory, now.

"Is losing that much going to have an adverse effect on them?" Thirteen asked Foreman, not wanting to attract Ratchet's ire with a potentially stupid question.

Foreman quirked a smile, understanding her discretion given Ratchet's body language. The old mech seemed to have reached the limit of his patience with House. It had taken longer than he'd expected. "From the looks of it, better that it's out than in. I'm sure Ratchet-"

The ringing sound of a cane striking metal with significant force cut off the exchange before it could continue. Cane still against the platform's handrail, House's voice matched the sharp resonance of the sound. "As I was saying: medicine is all about increments of change and fractions of difference."

He pushed himself away from the railing to move further along the platform, now directly overlooking Optimus with his team down to the side. The whiteboard had toppled over from some vibration in the fight, and he used the hook of his cane to pull it up and right it. "A small inconsistency can point to a result forty books away in the _Penguin Collection of Medicine_ to the disease you were first chasing."

At the continuation of the silent, largely blank expressions he was receiving in place of a healthy differential, House rolled his eyes with an agitated sound. He slammed the head of the cane against the railing again, though this time only Thirteen jumped.

"The pleural effusions came out of Prowl and Bumblebee at an increased rate to when they're just walking around in a reasonable temperature, because they were standing back and just shooting. Ironhide and particularly Optimus had this gunk pouring out of them. It increased dramatically in _volume_, not just in _rate_ of effusion. A train instead of a hotdog being thrown down a corridor. Andre the Giant instead of Kenny Barker violating-"

"Three hundred and forty-one litres is a lot of slime," Kutner shouted in grimaced agreement, vocalising the collective want to cut off that metaphor. When House smirked victoriously, the young doctor felt his ears warm with a blush.

Stepping away from the occupied berth, Ratchet took two steps to meet House's gaze directly and folded his arms. As inane as the route was, it did hold promise. "A significant amount," he concurred, his very tone forcing professionalism back into the hanger. "I ran a basic scan over all four of them before Ironhide and Prowl went back into the cold hanger, and they've lost mass. Optimus and Ironhide are lighter by ten and six percent, against Bumblebee and Prowl's three, respectively."

"When we're running scared, the human body releases more adrenalin into the bloodstream to make it run faster for a short time. It doesn't make new adrenalin – once the reserves are gone, it's gone until it makes more."

House paused to grab one of the booklets from the table – a photocopied and bound manual of the physical characteristics of the Autobots. It was as heavy as a housebrick, and rather than consult the index to find the correct pages, he flicked through the booklet demonstrably.

"You guys, on the other hand, are built on a system of not just reservoirs of material, but on the ability to transform materials. You're like a termite colony inside of an engine, systems operating within systems. When you're fighting, you release platelet patches from reservoirs that then swarm and open on small wounds. But you don't run out – your systems draw on energon and the very metal of your being to make more. It's why Ironhide and Optimus are notably *lighter* after a fifteen minute brawl. He didn't have liposuction – he lost mass directly through his vents."

Breaking down fat for energy, but not, Foreman concluded. More like breaking down lungs and liver for energy – causing more problems than it solved. He looked to Ratchet. "Breaking down from your own bodies - is that normal?"

Ratchet shook his head. "Not to this extent. Good energon holds everything we need in suspension, and that is what is extracted and processed at a greater speed in a combat situation." He motioned to the thick cables sealed tight against the Prime's vents to capture the toxic leaks and keep them away from the humans. "However, the energon that they've lost is still unprocessed, and it's the material of their bodies that is being broken down to use exclusively instead. But, as the process is backwards, the materials are just being lost, anyway."

"Like eggs coming back out of a baked and iced Victoria sponge cake," House concluded lightly, taking a step back to sit on the edge of the conference table. He spun his cane in a wave between his fingers, thoughtful.

An optic brow rising marginally, Ratchet's reply was dry. "Near enough."

Walking quickly to the bottom tier of the platform, Thirteen reached through the bars to grab one of the booklets that had been left there. She began searching through the pages and pages of diagrams, tables and text, not looking up as she returned to Foreman's side. "What does the extracting?"

"It's a secondary role of the CLAs," Ratchet supplied, returning his attention to the berth when a silent alarm flagged in his sensors. There was a breach somewhere in Optimus's coolant system, and energon was beginning to seep in and coagulate with it. It would have to be isolated, completely siphoned and then repaired.

Thirteen nodded, finally finding the page she wanted and folding the booklet back on itself. Foreman and Kutner stepped in close to see as she spoke. "So it's the CLAs that are being affected by the disease, and all these other symptoms are cascade reactions to that."

Though his optics were flickering scans over the larger mech's chassis in search of the tiny breach, Ratchet's voice was engaged with them. "The samples I took from the asphalt showed a marked increase in deactivated CLAs as compared to what he was losing before, which indicates that the problem is with them."

"It's an acquired immunodeficiency," Kutner determined, his expression serious and assured.

"More like an acquired immuno-forgotten-what-the-hell-we-were-supposed-to-be-doing-cy. The CLAs are broken," House corrected, though his attention was turned to the whiteboard. He produced a marker from his jacket pocket and began updating the tabulation.

Decepticon bioweapon

_Cold raises __viscosity__ "Stickiness"_

_Heat __– __stress aggravates__?_

_Frequent flyers. _

_Domestic virus(Sasser?)__/__bacteria__/fungus_

Protoform - sepsis

_Human __Truckasaurus_

_Lungs Intake Manifolds / Vents _

_Brain CPU_

_Blood Energon / Type O _

_Neurons Circuits_

_Lymph CLAs__ * (Circulating Leukocyte Analogues)_

_Spark Consciousness / ''''''Soul''''''_

_Platelets Clotting / minor-patch nanites_

_(Two Tiered consciousness = spark/processor)_

_STRESS__*_

Foreman rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, taking the booklet when Thirteen gave it to him and handing it straight to Taub. "Okay, so what brought that on? Acquired immunodeficiency is caused by other drugs or it's the result of another disease. It doesn't occur spontaneously. It's either there from birth and lies dormant, or it's generated."

"We need to step backwards," House announced, only just loud enough to be heard as he stared at the whiteboard. "We need samples from this Base."

"I scanned the Base." Disconnecting a side panel, Ratchet began feeding slender tools into the big chassis to calm either side of the beach in the line. There was only patience in his tone because he was concentrating intently on the procedure. "There is nothing that could contaminate us adversely, and none of the Autobots have been on anything like what you would define as 'drugs'."

House scoffed. "You're an alien. You don't know the meaning of 'foreign' on this planet."

Kutner looked around the Medbay with a sigh, seeing all over again that even the equipment that had a parallel in their hospital was still completely unrecognizable. "House is right – so much of this place is alien tech, I don't think we'd be able to identify something that could be behind these symptoms."

There was a long pause. House broke it with the sound of his cane ringing across the platform as he began moving towards the stairs at the other end. "Fine, I'll do it."

No pause followed the statement.

"What? You can't be-"

"Oh let him go, Foreman," Thirteen appeased, touching one hand to his shoulder even as she watched House limp arduously down the stairs. "It can't hurt, and it's not like we're rolling in answers, here.

Estimating that it would take a while for House to get down from the top level without Ratchet's help, Kutner looked to the working medic. "Your LCUs are working fine, right doc?"

The clamps in place around the breach, far enough away on both sides to contain all the tainted coolant, Ratchet extended the siphoning part from the back of his hand and began guiding it inside. "So far as I am aware, yes."

Kutner dipped his head once in a nod, one hand coming up to rub against his throbbing temple. It had been a very long, very strange day. "Okay – so we take a control sample from you and compare it with what's on the asphalt out there, and what Optimus has active in his systems now."

Thirteen's mouth pulled a little, her arms moving to fold across her chest. "That won't necessarily show how to treat it."

"No, but it's a good start," Foreman replied, his posture tightening with the intensity of purpose. Finally they had a diagnostic direction to go in, no longer reaching in the dark and feeling misplaced as well as sorely out of their depth. It gave him a fresh burst of energy after the ordeal of the attack. "Get on it. House?"

Kutner looked to see the door at the far end of the Medbay ajar, the doctor having slipped away through the quickest exit from the platform. "He's gone."

Foreman jerked to look as well, having been wholly expecting House to pass them and go out the main hanger door. "What? How? Where?"

From the cot, and warm with morphine, Taub's chest twitched with suppressed laughter. "Don't you want to know 'why' and 'when', as well?"

"Shut up, Taub."

Ignoring the exchange, Thirteen scanned over the equipment on the bottom level and found her suspicion confirmed. "He's taken the sampling case."

Foreman rolled his eyes. House didn't take samples. They, highly qualified and sought-after medical professionals, were his lackeys in that department. He was supposed to stay with the whiteboard and have his epiphany from what they reported back. That was the point in him having a team. "Fine. We'll work better without his metaphors and rants, anyway."

The floor trembled with Ratchet's steps as he approached without warning to kneel behind them. He extended his hand, a silver canister the size of a large thermos resting in his palm. "Here's your sample. Now that Optimus is stable, I need to see to the others."

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed this even after such a long wait!_


	8. Chapter 8

Only Human

_Chapter Eight_

* * *

It was almost 7pm when the Diego Garcia Base finally began to look as if a battle hadn't taken place there that day, and the air was cloying with the heavy smell of chemicals. House had taken the many dozens of samples he'd been determined to inspect from outside the hangers whilst there was still daylight, moving inside when the sun slid into a thick band on the horizon. Now, cold, exhausted and with stabbing cramps building into crescendo over the persisting throb in his leg, House sat on a crate in the dark watching the last of the clean-up.

The NEST soldier behind him, who the doctor had only permitted to help when he agreed to 'maintain inhuman silence', fidgeted in the biting cold. Drawn back to himself by the quiet motion, House nodded to the sample case. "Alright, Sparky: take those to Doctor Foreman and tell him to quit playing nursemaid and get onto chemistry instead."

"Yes Sir."

House's eyebrows rose in deliberate arches as the soldier slowly bent to pick up the case. "I meant yesterday, soldier – there's a war on! Quick-to, double-time! Hut-hut-hut!"

His grin at the soldier's rapidly retreating form slid away to leave a hissing grimace, and House clasped both hands around his gingerly extended leg. The pain was worse than it had been since Cuddy had delivered the captivating case file to him, compounded by the diagnostic dead-ends and the near-death condition of the patients. He'd combed this base around the clean-up, and though he was certain that the answer was here, inspiration hadn't struck. And none of his team had come running out with a breakthrough from working with RoboDoc, indicating that they were all, presently, as useless as each other.

Sitting in the dark and letting frost build up in the creases of his coat wasn't doing anything to help, however. With a pained grunt for his cold-numb hand around the cane as much as for his stiff leg, House forced himself to his feet. He was just stepping into the perimeter of the Yard when a muffled roar and flash of orange seized his attention, and suddenly the pain and cold were distant sensations. He lurched quickly back between the hangers and through, following the unmistakable sound of a discharging flamethrower and gleeful male cackles of laughter.

"Pull!"

House reached the scene just as Skids threw something small high into the air, Mudflap ready with the fire to incinerate the object at its apex. It landed still-burning a little way off, extinguishing under-pede as Sideswipe bore down on the howling mechs at full speed from around the side of the hanger. The sound of the flat of a blade striking two metal helms rang out loudly.

"What in the Smelter do you two think you're doing?" Sideswipe demanded in a superior officer's roar, optics incredulous and furious in equal measure.

Mudflap staggered back with one hand to his helm, jaw hanging from the force of the blow. "Damn, man – you gone'n hit us too hard to answer that right now."

Alongside his brother, and taking extra confidence in his proximity, Skids glowered back at the dark mech. "Yeah, Sides. Save the processor-smacking for after the questioning."

"Poor interrogation technique right there," Mudflap added sagely with a nod. "Starting with the processor an' all."

Sideswipe raised the blade again with a rumbled growl, immediately silencing both Twins, before pointing to the littered (and still burning) mounds. "Explanations. Now."

They exchanged a look before Skids shrugged, rolling his helm on his shoulders as if resetting a gimble. "Clean up – decontamination. Them pigeons got scared offline in the fight- "

"-by Starscream's face-"

"-and there weren't nobody taking them away or whatever, so me and Mudflap figured we'd incinerate them."

"For hygiene."

"Very important: hygiene."

"Yes," Sideswipe grated in a long, deeply irritated drawl. "It's very hygienic to send flaming organic detritus spattering about all over the base. Stellar work as always. I think that'll be earning you two monitor duty for a year."

The pain in his leg thinned as the word resonated in his mind, and House lurched his body towards the aliens. "Hey, Colonel Kurtz, you got any more of those birds pre-barbequed?"

Skids, only too glad to veer away from Sideswipe's glower, shunted a crate across the asphalt towards the doctor. "Down to two, man. You want 'em?"

House squatted with both hands braced on the cane to look into the box. Both birds were slick with fuel – doubtless the reason why they were so spectacularly flammable. Without averting his eyes, he produced a rubber glove from his pocket, slipped it on and picked up both animals by the head. The petroleum stink chased away the lingering weariness in his joints, and the doctor began a quick limp back towards the main hanger.

After watching the human's retreat for a few seconds, Mudflap punched his partner in the side to get his attention.

"What'd'you reckon, Skids? Barbeque?"

Skids didn't get a chance to respond as Sideswipe's hands closed around both their napes, forcing their protesting heads down as he dragged them away.

* * *

House had bypassed the hanger where his team and Ratchet continued to toil over dead ends and groundless speculation, going around the back to the small area set up as their accommodation. There was a coffee maker and associated sundries, four barrack-style beds, an adjoining washroom and a metal worktable stacked with books and notepads.

Shoving their research material onto the floor out of the way, House pulled the cord on the desklamp and squinted at the brightness of the yellow bulb. Not perfect, but it would do.

It took twenty minutes to gather materials from all five bags and the base's medical kit, long enough for the bulb's filament to warm up. House wrapped the smaller of the two pigeons in a plastic bag and left it outside, laying the other on its back in a metal tray on the desk. Ragging his gloves off, he swung the lamp across to shine over the body.

Placing a fingertip beneath a scaled leg, he studied the bird's foot and the patchy feathers about its thighs. Purple discolouration was spreading from the toes upwards, and there was a deep, dried gouge along the left foot. House rubbed the muscles in the limb, dismissing the likelihood of infection and pursuing the symptom of disorientation that might have led the bird to screw up a landing.

Though rotating the dissection tray would have made examination easier, House leaned over the small body out of habit to tip the head. Prying the eyelids open, he found discharge and inflammation of the nictitating membrane, suggestive of conjunctivitis. The slit of a nasal opening on the beak was also streaked with fluid. It took a minute for the doctor to locate the bird's ear opening, and he frowned at finding it clear.

Still frowning, House returned to where he'd left Thirteen's lipstick after rifling through her belongings and brought the makeshift pen to the examination table. To the right of the dissection tray, he quickly scrawled:

Swelling

Discolouration

Nasal discharge

Coordination

Lost muscle mass

He set the lipstick aside on its base and uncapped the scalpel. Pinching the skin at the base of the bird's tail, he pulled the flesh up and nicked a shallow cut. Swapping to the scissors, House pushed the bottom blade through the hole and cut along the midventral line from cloaca to throat.

"How contagious is this malady?"

The scissors clattered to the floor between House's legs from his surprised fumble. Waiting for the clenching ache across his heart to ease, he glared at the Autobot kneeling in the hanger's partially-opened doorway. Prowl had remained on the other side of the door's runner, leaving a clear thirty feet of distance between his leaking frame and the doctor's impromptu surgical table.

"First of all, it's rude to just come in without knocking," House barked, shaking his head and resting his wrists against the edge of the table. "And second of all, giant robots should not be able to sneak up that quietly."

Prowl was uncertain as to what to do with those statements, so he merely raised his doorwings. The silent communication was entirely lost on the other. "Doctor?"

Rolling his eyes, House retrieved the scissors. "I have a team for answering pointless questions." He gave Prowl a brief and uncomfortably false smile. "They'll even sound like they care. I'm busy."

The tactician watched House make four further cuts outwards from the initial incision, opening the body fully. Prowl slid the door further to underline that he was not going to be so easily dismissed.

"Why are you dissecting a dead bird?"

"Because the live ones won't keep still." House used the tip of the scalpel to fold back the layers of skin, then moved the lamp with his wrist to better see into the body cavity.

It had been years since he'd dissected anything other than rats and people. Birds had been rare in med school, but they were also interesting. That made them memorable. House pushed the syrinx to one side, recalling perfectly the complex structure of membranes inside through which birdsong was created, and followed the oesophagus to the crop.

Finding the organ completely empty, House returned to the lipstick.

_Swelling_

_Discolouration_

_Nasal discharge_

_Coordination_

_Lost muscle mass* _

_Loss of appetite_

_Lethargy/depression?_

Prowl did not enter the hanger any further, and checked that no part of his frame was overhanging the raised door runner as he knelt on the ground. The heavy dousing with liquid nitrogen would only provide a short reprieve from the leaks. Something shuddered as his weight settled, and it took a moment of minute fidgeting and internal micro-shifts to free the spasming part.

There was nothing in the mech's tone to indicate pain. Only a grim urgency that made his words terse. "If this affliction can be transmitted, then the leader of the Decepticons and his second in command may already be infected. It is of the utmost tactical importance that you are able to confirm or refute this."

House's tone, in response, was light. "I assume that if it is contagious and I can provide an effective treatment which the Decepticons don't find out about in time to save their leaders, then someone else will take charge and your war'll go into overtime." He didn't look up from the small body in front of him, systematically nicking each of the air sacs radiating from the lungs open and sliding a fingertip inside.

Prowl lay his wrist across his raised knee, the powerful joints in his deceptively slender hand contracting into a fist. "Without Megatron or Starscream in command, in all likelihood the Decepticons will succumb to infighting and disarray. Without their leaders' vitriol, it is possible that a temporary ceasefire, truce and even peace can be attained."

The air sacs should have been scorched dry, but there were still traces of fluid in the abdominal and posterior thoracic. House was still a moment, as if sudden movement might destroy the convergence of hunches, results and obviousness.

_Vents. Cooling system*_

He circled the addition to the pigeon's differential diagnosis. Finally, he squeezed a loop of the bird's lower intestine and cut it in half. With the pressure created by his fingers, a sizable amount of excrement immediately sluiced out. House smiled despite the smell, running his gloved thumb from the green droppings. Bilge pigments. Biliverdinuria.

"Whilst that's a beautiful dream of peace through biological warfare, it's not going to happen. Because it isn't contagious." House sat back and nodded at Prowl. Specifically towards the bag near his feet, out of sight but rustling in the breeze. "Pass me that other pigeon, would you?"

When the Cybertronian didn't move, he stretched out his leg with a grimace and rubbed the gutted muscle. "I'd get up, an' all, but I can't just turn off my pain receptors or reroute my hydraulics like some people can."

The interlocking lenses of Prowl's optics cycled, contracted and spiralled open again. He made no move to pick up the pigeon. "You have determined that this undiagnosed affliction is not contagious through your analysis of another species," he said, his deadpan tone simultaneously neutral, disbelieving and condescending.

Hooking the handle of his cane over his arm, House took the scalpel and hobbled towards the door. Prowl watched him take the body out of the bag, then mumble as he arranged it belly-up in one gloved hand. "No, by looking at the numbingly obvious." He held the bird up and examined its head, the scalpel held in his fist. "No one else has gotten sick aside from the original four."

"They have been isolated and quarantined to prevent-"

"How comprehensive is that quarantine?" House barked in the same instant as he stabbed the blade into the pigeon's throat and drew it down. There was a certainty in the roughness, confidence where with the first bird there had been cautious meticulousness. "You're disposing of their effusions with a diligence that'd make Erin Brockovich quiver, but you're doing nothing about the air. Or the soldiers marching back and forth between the sick and the healthy, traipsing spores and bacteria on their uniforms. You're not even scrubbing down what they touch. It's the mundane that kills."

A rubbery string of intestine came out over his curled finger. He trapped a section between his thumb and the scalpel, pressing until it split and green sludge oozed out. "Washing your hands after you sneeze but forgetting to disinfect the light switch you turned on to go to the bathroom. It's environmental. Some event they were all exposed to."

Prowl waited for the doctor to go on, half a processor thread from pinging Ratchet. He couldn't determine why the man would be smiling unless he had found the answer inside the dead pigeon. When House put it back in the plastic bag and began limping with it back to the table, he prompted: "And the bird?'

House didn't reply until the other bird had joined the one in the bag. He pulled his gloves off and dropped them in as well, tying it off with a smile to Prowl. "Part of that environment."

"I fail to see-"

"It was sick," House cut in, as he was compelled to do whenever someone was about to launch into a tedious list of everything that escaped their narrow understanding. He considered it an act of self-preservation: stupid could be transmitted.

Leaving the bag of pigeon corpses next to Kutner's bag, which overflowed with paraphernalia to such a degree that House figured it could easily be mistaken for a bin, House leaned into his cane and made for the door. "It ultimately died from the stress of the firefight, but it was already starving to death. Two more for the intergalactic body count."

Prowl stood and took a jerky step back to give the doctor room. "Likely due to exposure to our energon fumes, coolant vapours, exhaust-"

"Wrong way round," House announced as he cleared the lip of the door. "Han totally shot first." It was a laboured metaphor, hardly stretching to 'these aren't the droids you're looking for', but House was in a determined rush.

Turning to follow the doctor across the Yard proved to be disastrous. Prowl grunted as a slew of errors lit up his HUD and he heard as much as felt a congealed energon plug slip loose. Absently noting that House was moving at an increase of 26% his average pace, the tactician sent a clean-up notice and made his way back to the freezer.

* * *

_I'm sorry for the hideously long delay in this update. The last year has been extremely eventful, and it's been a challenge to find time and my muse to write. Thank you to those who have stuck with the story. It would be lovely if you left a comment of some kind._

_Thanks for reading!_


End file.
